This. As a Chiefs fan I keep an a eye on SD all year and dude is a beast, a jackass off the field but dude can ball.

Right, sounds kinda like Jared Allen as a Chief, except Jared Allen was an All Pro and still is.
But both guy's off-field jackassness ultimately got them traded.... (I'm still mad at the Chiefs for that)

False. You must be VJ's agent or his mother.
There's not ONE GM in the NFL who would take Vincent Jackson over Calvin Johnson. He's not the 4th best WR in the NFL, not even close.

That's talent/production/character/net worth, everything.

His talent isn't top 5.
His production isn't top 5.
He character isn't top 50 (hello suspension).

Production:
Even last year when VJ supposedly broke-out, he had fewer yards receiving than Santonio Holmes did, and almost 200 less than Miles Austin, a guy who really didn't start until month 2 of the season.

Roddy White had more catches and 2 more TDs than VJ did, and that's in a year in which Matt Ryan was hurt.

Randy Moss' stats blew him away last year. Moss had more catches, more yards, and 44% more TDs.

Marques Colston's stats are very similar, but Colston isn't a criminal who's suspended for it either. Still, I don't see anyone calling Colston a top-4 WR.

Sidney Rice had 15 more catches and almost 200 yards more than VJ did, and Rice is younger.

Again, I hate to argue on behalf of any Minnesota Viking, but to say Vince Jackson is better than every WR other than Andre, LF, and Marshall is either suspicious, or just an April 1st post.

And I haven't even mentioned Greg Jennings, Steve Smith, or Anquan Boldin. Talent & Production-wise, I don't think a case can be made that Jackson is better than any of those 3 guys. Put Steve Smith on San Diego the past 3 seasons instead of Carolina with horse**** Jake Delhomme, and put VJ in Smith's shoes in Carolina.

You're still only looking into the stats, do you actually watch someone play or just go to espn's player bio and look at their seasons production to base your opinion. You don't even know the half of it.

You're still only looking into the stats, do you actually watch someone play or just go to espn's player bio and look at their seasons production to base your opinion. You don't even know the half of it.

I know more than half of it.
I watch every Charger game on the Sunday Ticket and have since before Rivers was their starting QB or before Jackson was their starting WR. I actually just went to a

Chargers home game against the Raiders and I was able to focus in on indivicual players away from the camera.

Jackson is not a top 4 WR, or even top 10. He's close to 10, but he has a lot of thanks to give to the offense he has been in with a great QB, and playing against defenses who worry first about Antonio Gates and had worried more about LT and the running game.

Besides all that, you have a punk off the field who already has 2 strikes against him. If he's gonna hold out, that's on him, and I admire AJ Smith and the Bolts for telling him to piss off. * If he demands a new deal or a trade, then Send his ass to Cleveland and see how his stats and play look catching passes from Delhomme instead of Rivers.

False. You must be VJ's agent or his mother.
There's not ONE GM in the NFL who would take Vincent Jackson over Calvin Johnson. He's not the 4th best WR in the NFL, not even close.

That's talent/production/character/net worth, everything.

His talent isn't top 5.
His production isn't top 5.
He character isn't top 50 (hello suspension).

Production:
Even last year when VJ supposedly broke-out, he had fewer yards receiving than Santonio Holmes did, and almost 200 less than Miles Austin, a guy who really didn't start until month 2 of the season.

Roddy White had more catches and 2 more TDs than VJ did, and that's in a year in which Matt Ryan was hurt.

Randy Moss' stats blew him away last year. Moss had more catches, more yards, and 44% more TDs.

Marques Colston's stats are very similar, but Colston isn't a criminal who's suspended for it either. Still, I don't see anyone calling Colston a top-4 WR.

Sidney Rice had 15 more catches and almost 200 yards more than VJ did, and Rice is younger.

Again, I hate to argue on behalf of any Minnesota Viking, but to say Vince Jackson is better than every WR other than Andre, LF, and Marshall is either suspicious, or just an April 1st post.

And I haven't even mentioned Greg Jennings, Steve Smith, or Anquan Boldin. Talent & Production-wise, I don't think a case can be made that Jackson is better than any of those 3 guys. Put Steve Smith on San Diego the past 3 seasons instead of Carolina with horse**** Jake Delhomme, and put VJ in Smith's shoes in Carolina.

Do you seriously not understand what everyone has been trying to tell you? Jackson's production suffers because Rivers spreads the football around and doesn't throw it to one receiver every play.

Roddy White was targeted 164 times (2nd in the NFL) last season compared to Vincent Jackson's 107 times. I did a short study and decided to calculate what each receiver would have produced had they all received 164 passes thrown their way. I left A. Johnson, Fitzgerald, and Marshall out of the study because they are the "consensus" top three.

Now, had all those receivers received the same number of balls thrown their way Jackson would've led that entire group in yards and yards per reception. He also would've tied for third in touchdowns behind only Miles Austin and Randy Moss. There is no way you can make an argument that Roddy White, Sidney Rice, Greg Jennings, or Anquan Boldin are as good as Vincent Jackson, much less better. Don't punish Jackson because Rivers distributes the ball the different receivers. Vincent Jackson easily has better production than half the guys you have listed considering he gets targeted far less.

Do you seriously not understand what everyone has been trying to tell you? Jackson's production suffers because Rivers spreads the football around and doesn't throw it to one receiver every play.

Roddy White was targeted 164 times (2nd in the NFL) last season compared to Vincent Jackson's 107 times. I did a short study and decided to calculate what each receiver would have produced had they all received 164 passes thrown their way. I left A. Johnson, Fitzgerald, and Marshall out of the study because they are the "consensus" top three.

Now, had all those receivers received the same number of balls thrown their way Jackson would've led that entire group in yards and yards per reception. He also would've tied for third in touchdowns behind only Miles Austin and Randy Moss. There is no way you can make an argument that Roddy White, Sidney Rice, Greg Jennings, or Anquan Boldin are as good as Vincent Jackson, much less better. Don't punish Jackson because Rivers distributes the ball the different receivers. Vincent Jackson easily has better production than half the guys you have listed considering he gets targeted far less.

Thank you, I didn't even have to type all that up because you beat me to it.

P-L with the most intelligent post I've seen in a while. And just to tack on a little bit more....Jackson is a huge dude. Size isn't everything, but when your talking about a WR, it's definitely something and worth mentioning as well when talking about his value.

Do you seriously not understand what everyone has been trying to tell you? Jackson's production suffers because Rivers spreads the football around and doesn't throw it to one receiver every play.

Roddy White was targeted 164 times (2nd in the NFL) last season compared to Vincent Jackson's 107 times. I did a short study and decided to calculate what each receiver would have produced had they all received 164 passes thrown their way. I left A. Johnson, Fitzgerald, and Marshall out of the study because they are the "consensus" top three.

Now, had all those receivers received the same number of balls thrown their way Jackson would've led that entire group in yards and yards per reception. He also would've tied for third in touchdowns behind only Miles Austin and Randy Moss. There is no way you can make an argument that Roddy White, Sidney Rice, Greg Jennings, or Anquan Boldin are as good as Vincent Jackson, much less better. Don't punish Jackson because Rivers distributes the ball the different receivers. Vincent Jackson easily has better production than half the guys you have listed considering he gets targeted far less.

Your flaw is that had he been targeted an equivalent number of times, the defense would have moved more coverage to him. I don't even know why this isn't obvious. You can't extrapolate data in the NFL. It just doesn't work.

Your flaw is that had he been targeted an equivalent number of times, the defense would have moved more coverage to him. I don't even know why this isn't obvious. You can't extrapolate data in the NFL. It just doesn't work.

And the exact same thing would apply to every other player on the list too.......that negates it in my understanding of equations and such.

If Jackson would get open more often, he'd get a lot more targets. You don't think Rivers would like to chuck em up to the tall dude 10+ times a game?

Plus because of the great Antonio Gates, Jackson doesn't face the same coverages as guys like Steve Smith, Calvin Johnson, OchoCinco, etc.

I was the guy who drafted Vincent Jackson last year in my keeper league and I thought I liked the guy, but if you guys really think this guy's the 4th best, even 5th or 6th WR in the NFL, then I guess I don't like him that much after all.

And the exact same thing would apply to every other player on the list too.......that negates it in my understanding of equations and such.

What makes a WR better than another WR? His ability to beat more coverages.

So increasing the amount of coverage you receive will cause a reduced production rate.

How much it reduces is dependent upon how good of a WR you are. If you agree that the better a WR you are, the better you can beat coverages then you must agree that more coverage would cause weaker WRs to slow their production. Then you agree that 150+% extrapolation is clearly flawed in that matter.

I'm not one for strict rankings...I'm more a of "tiers" kind of person, and, with his size and ability, I'd have him on my 2nd tier of receivers. The first tier consisting of AJ, Fitz and Marshall.

And if I were starting a team from scratch, I'd consider him at WR before I'd consider guys like Austin, Jennings, Carolina Steve Smith, Rice, and Boldin because of his size and comparative age.

Like has been said many times, if he and Brandon Marshall switched places last year, I think Jackson's production would have gone way up...maybe not matching Marshall's, but still higher than what he had in SD with so many other weapons around him.

Yeah, you could make the argument that should open things up for him more....but there are literally only so many balls to go around. And if you look at his average compared to say, Marshall....his is a lot better since he's freer to go downfield with the other weapons drawing attention.

Do you seriously not understand what everyone has been trying to tell you? Jackson's production suffers because Rivers spreads the football around and doesn't throw it to one receiver every play.

Roddy White was targeted 164 times (2nd in the NFL) last season compared to Vincent Jackson's 107 times. I did a short study and decided to calculate what each receiver would have produced had they all received 164 passes thrown their way. I left A. Johnson, Fitzgerald, and Marshall out of the study because they are the "consensus" top three.

Now, had all those receivers received the same number of balls thrown their way Jackson would've led that entire group in yards and yards per reception. He also would've tied for third in touchdowns behind only Miles Austin and Randy Moss. There is no way you can make an argument that Roddy White, Sidney Rice, Greg Jennings, or Anquan Boldin are as good as Vincent Jackson, much less better. Don't punish Jackson because Rivers distributes the ball the different receivers. Vincent Jackson easily has better production than half the guys you have listed considering he gets targeted far less.

Thank you P-L for this amazing post. Some people don't know how to go past nfl.com and look at receptions, yards, TD's and end the argument there.

Also, the moral of this post: throw the damn ball to Miles Austin more :)

Also, some QB's, and WR's just spread the ball around a ton. You could make an argument that some WR's are open every single play technically. You can't just say "well VJ just isn't getting open".

What if there is double coverage on him and a wide open Malcolm Floyd, or a single covered Antonio Gates, why force the ball? No matter how good a WR is common sense tells you look at the open guy.

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scott Wright

I guarantee that if someone picks Cam Newton in the Top 5 they will regret it.

What if there is double coverage on him and a wide open Malcolm Floyd, or a single covered Antonio Gates, why force the ball? No matter how good a WR is common sense tells you look at the open guy.

And that's exactly what's going to happen with a 6'5 receiver who is averaging 18 ypc. There's a very fine difference between "not getting open" and "drawing coverage." With all of the other talent on that SD offense...guys to spread the ball to like Gates, Floyd, LT, Sproles...Rivers is going to see less targets.

It's like I said earlier that I think he could have Marshall type production if the ball were forced his way a lot more....might not actually be good for the team though.

Doesn't the fact that he doesn't get as many looks mean he isn't getting open? I mean I doubt that Rivers is intentionally throwing it to these other receivers while Vincent is wide open.

That's not really how professional football works though. There's primary targets in essentially ever pass play and a whole progression order. Norv Turner likes to spread the production around and that in turn allows his receivers to make it further down the field without drawing extra coverage. It's an offense doesn't have to rely on one guy being too awesome for the defense to shut him down and has proven itself to be highly effective.

I think that if Jackson played on some version of the Chargers offense which got the ball into his hands 110 times or so, his YPC would fall noticeably. That said, Jackson is the most dangerous receiver on that team and it's not close at all. He's a brilliant over the shoulder receiver and he beats single coverages really consistently (not young Randy Moss consistently, but Moss might have been the best ever at that).

I'm fully on board with VJ being awesome, but Im absolutely with the guys who say that you cant extrapolate data in the NFL. It simply does not work that way. There are a million tiny variables to consider when doing stuff like that, ranging from anywhere between the teams (and corners) that receiver faced to health of QB's to strength of their overall team to EVERYTHING. As much as alot of people wish it was that easy, there is no way in hell I can take stats like P-L posted legitimately. I don't think that really discredits the argument made for Vincent Jackson nor does it really strengthen anything opposing, but I do believe those numbers are completely arbitrary. I mean, I would imagine someone like Desean Jackson's stats would be through the roof if you extrapolated his stats like that...I mean he averaged almost 19 YPC and only had 63 receptions all year long, and Donovan spreads the ball around just as much as Rivers does.

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Goosemahn

The APS is strong in this one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by killxswitch

Tears for Fears is better than whatever it is you happen to be thinking about right now.

They fall short of completely arbitrary. They are after all extrapolations of real data. How much credence you give them is your call, but it's not an altogether poor illustration of the discrepancy in chances wide receivers get in the NFL.

I'm fully on board with VJ being awesome, but Im absolutely with the guys who say that you cant extrapolate data in the NFL. It simply does not work that way. There are a million tiny variables to consider when doing stuff like that, ranging from anywhere between the teams (and corners) that receiver faced to health of QB's to strength of their overall team to EVERYTHING. As much as alot of people wish it was that easy, there is no way in hell I can take stats like P-L posted legitimately. I don't think that really discredits the argument made for Vincent Jackson nor does it really strengthen anything opposing, but I do believe those numbers are completely arbitrary. I mean, I would imagine someone like Desean Jackson's stats would be through the roof if you extrapolated his stats like that...I mean he averaged almost 19 YPC and only had 63 receptions all year long, and Donovan spreads the ball around just as much as Rivers does.

Your right, and I don't think(at least I hope) nobody took the data that he compiled literally. I think the better point is that J-Mike was simply looking at stats on nfl.com and judging who was the better WR that way, and completely ignoring things that skewed those stats such as targets.

None of those WR's would probably realistically reach those numbers, but it's at least a good way to gauge how much more the rest of the guys were getting the ball thrown to them in their offense then VJ was. So if you want to purely look at stats you at least have to take that into consideration.

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scott Wright

I guarantee that if someone picks Cam Newton in the Top 5 they will regret it.

They fall short of completely arbitrary. They are after all extrapolations of real data.

Before I explain, let me say that I have college degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science (with my core study done in data mining and statistical analysis). The term "extrapolation" means making WE HAVE GOD **** CENSORS STOP ******* TRYING TO GET AROUND THEM. FOR ***** SAKE. up from data, basically. When you "extrapolate" too much, you end up with garbage numbers.

P-L's post is well thought out but mechanically flawed. As a professional opinion, I would not rely on data that extrapolates over 150% of the area covered by the data. Minor extrapolation isn't harmful, but major extrapolation is just as bad as completely making numbers up. I mean something like this: take a WR whom had 1490 yards for the season averaging 15 ypc. A minor extrapolation would be to say if the WR caught one more pass, he would have broken 1500 yards.

Extrapolations break down when you start to take them out too far beyond your resource data because you are assuming the trends will continue. Over a small interval of change, this hold true which is why it's ok to make small data extrapolations. However, over a large interval of change, the assumption that your data set won't change makes a much larger impact.

I can give you tons of reasons why the model would change if you simply changed the number of times targeted.

P-L should have probably simply pointed out his YPC as high as it is as well as his TD/target and catches per target. That would be sufficient to show that he's a good WR. But I still contend that WRs are easier to find and not worth the big pay days. Then again, it's nice to have an elite WR around.

That's not really how professional football works though. There's primary targets in essentially ever pass play and a whole progression order. Norv Turner likes to spread the production around and that in turn allows his receivers to make it further down the field without drawing extra coverage. It's an offense doesn't have to rely on one guy being too awesome for the defense to shut him down and has proven itself to be highly effective.

I think that if Jackson played on some version of the Chargers offense which got the ball into his hands 110 times or so, his YPC would fall noticeably. That said, Jackson is the most dangerous receiver on that team and it's not close at all. He's a brilliant over the shoulder receiver and he beats single coverages really consistently (not young Randy Moss consistently, but Moss might have been the best ever at that).

Well in all reality it kinda is how pro ball works. Sure you do have a primary receiver BUT you don't lock on to your primary receiver and not look at your other targets that is how interceptions happen. All QBs work through their progressions before locking on to the primary WR unless it is a short pass or something.

__________________
Stafford Sig by touchdownrams the rest of the sig by Sig Master Bone Krusher Avy by King of all avys renji